I'm casting a 550 skagit with 10' of t-14. I'm just starting to get the feel of the rod and the timing down to cast longer lengths of the running line. I hold a couple of the loops of the running line in my casting hand pinkie. I would be able to cast much further but the running line twists and sometimes wraps itself around the stripping guide on the forward stroke. Is this common and fixable?

At the river,,,,, take your head off the running line and strip the running line from your reel letting it dangel in the current. This will alow it to untwist some. Now crank the running line onto you reel running it through a wash rag that you have gripped firmly on the line. Take your time doing this to allow the current to spin the line taking the kinks out of the line.

I do this anytime my running line is kinked and doesn't shoot properly.

Location: British Columbia, Canada fishing the West Kootenays mighty Columbia, Dean, and the Clearwater

Posts: 1,417

It may also have something to do with the way you spooled it onto your reel. I see a common mistake; A lot of people simply lay the spool of running line down on the floor and then proceed to wind it onto the reel. Problem with this is that it introduces a half twist in the line for every full revolution on the reel.
Trust me...as I fly tyer, you see this all the time winding materials onto a hook shank

The spool of running line should be wound on directly in line and on something like a pencil to avoid this twist.

If this is what you have done, you will get loads of twisting on the running line, so follow the instructions given in the above posts and it will eliminate them

Line twist is something most of us have encountered at one time or another, even when we are careful about how we load our lines line twist eventually shows up. Line twist shows up more when we use thinner running lines attached to shorter heads like skagit and scandi lines, during retrieval the caster imparts twist into the line just by the motion of the retrieving hand. A caster that retrieves line using the left hand tends to impart a clockwise twist and a right hand retrieve imparts an anti clockwise twist. The cause of this is the rotation of the wrist during the stripping motion, most of us tend to grasp the line with the palm facing up and as we retrieve we rotate the thumb towards the body ending with the palm facing down which has resulted in rotating the line 180 degrees. Some casters rotate the line between the thumb and fore finger during the retrieve which results in more line twist.

Next time when you are out fishing watch your palm during the retrieve, if you start palm up try and finish palm up and vice versa for palm down.

here's the easiest way I've found to untwist tangles: with line on the dangle at the end of a cast, hold the rod with two hands (upper and lower grips) horizontally out in front of you. Spin it 15 times along the rod's axis, so that the reel and line rotate around the rod. If the tangles are gone, voila. If they're worse, spin it the other direction. Done. Takes about 10 seconds.

on the cast, you can also slightly control a shooting line with the index finger of the top hand. Not quite a "ring" as one would make with the lower hand fingers when shooting a single hand rod, more like a "bench" to direct the line towards the lowest stripping guide

At the river,,,,, take your head off the running line and strip the running line from your reel letting it dangel in the current. This will alow it to untwist some. Now crank the running line onto you reel running it through a wash rag that you have gripped firmly on the line. Take your time doing this to allow the current to spin the line taking the kinks out of the line.

I do this anytime my running line is kinked and doesn't shoot properly.

Skilly

I don't care how careful you're putting on backing/line you're not going to get in right (dumb luck excluded). As he says above, but do it twice or three times before your first real cast.

I have found that certain running lines twist regardless of the handling procedure. The line i found to work the best seems to be the Ken Sawada Super Flat Beam although it is a bit of a pain to order and ship from Japan.

here's the easiest way I've found to untwist tangles: with line on the dangle at the end of a cast, hold the rod with two hands (upper and lower grips) horizontally out in front of you. Spin it 15 times along the rod's axis, so that the reel and line rotate around the rod. If the tangles are gone, voila. If they're worse, spin it the other direction. Done. Takes about 10 seconds.

on the cast, you can also slightly control a shooting line with the index finger of the top hand. Not quite a "ring" as one would make with the lower hand fingers when shooting a single hand rod, more like a "bench" to direct the line towards the lowest stripping guide

SSpey: Terrific tip...I tried it out this past Saturday and it worked like a charm. I've been making all river left casts...to untwist you have to rotate the rod clockwise...took about 30 seconds...thanks alot.

I'm casting a 550 skagit with 10' of t-14. I'm just starting to get the feel of the rod and the timing down to cast longer lengths of the running line. I hold a couple of the loops of the running line in my casting hand pinkie. I would be able to cast much further but the running line twists and sometimes wraps itself around the stripping guide on the forward stroke. Is this common and fixable?

Thank you,

BJB

Are you asking about running line snagging on the stripping guide after the forward cast release? If so hold the coils in the lower hand during the cast, with the coils long enough to be in the water during the cast.

Ditto on Steves method. Look at the loop curls and spin the rod in the direction to uncurl. Double the # and go backwards if you got it wrong and made it worse. The key here is the 15 seconds it takes.
I find myself doing this quite often, say every few times I fish. Not sure what's twisting up my line, but I recognise it early and fix it right away.
This is generally a bigger issue for me overhead casting, where the amt of shooting line is greater.

A follow up on what Ian mentioned about line twist from stripping. One thing I have started doing is with the first loop I strip in with palm up and grasp the loop with loop dropping off to the rear of the index finger. The next loop I strip in with palm down and grasp the loop so it exits forward on the index finger. I then transfer these loops to the top of my grip and place my upper thumb on them (I am not holding loops with my lower hand). I also make very large loops trailing in the water below me to reduce the number of loops. this has cut down on tangling.

This may an old post, but it was very helpful. My running line was getting twisted as I practiced casting in a local pond. Since I didn't have a river to let it hang on the dangle and reel it in, I tried the method of holding it out in front and rotating the rod. Worked very well, very quickly.